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Surface texturing has been proven as an effective means of contact performance enhancement. However, limited work has been done to investigate the regular relationship to solve the multi-parameters problem of textures, and inertia effect and elastic deformation were seldom considered together in previous optimization work. This paper aims to quantitatively obtain the relationship between the textured depth and liquid film thickness and find the effect of deformation on the optimal textured height ratio in elastic parallel sliders.

Numerical models of hydrodynamic lubrication are established based on the computational fluid dynamic method. Elastic deformation is considered through fluid–structure interaction (FSI) method. Using response surface optimization method, textured parallel sliders are optimized with maximum loading capacity as the objective.

The results show that the optimal height ratios are all within the range of 0.60-0.65 when textured parallel sliders are considered as rigid. After considering the effect of elastic deformation, loading capacity drops and is reduced more obviously with a decrease in the elastic moduli. The optimal height ratios are within the range of 0.60-0.63, which shows that FSI has a considerable influence on loading capacity but has no significant influence on the optimal height ratio.

The present research provides a theoretical reference for engineering application of elastic textured parallel sliders.

Shear stresses have a considerable influence on the characteristics of lubricants and become significant at high rotating speeds. This study aims to investigate the influences of shear cavitation (SC) on loading capacity of journal bearings.

A principal normal stress cavitation criterion based on the stress applied to flowing lubricant in journal bearings is developed and used to investigate SC in journal bearings. A computational fluid dynamic (CFD) model for calculating the loading capacity is established using this criterion. After validation with experimental results, the loading capacity is calculated under different conditions.

The calculation results indicate that SC intensifies when viscosity, speed and eccentricity increase. Angle of loading capacity with SC is larger than that without SC. The magnitude of loading capacity with SC is smaller than that without SC due to the decrease in the ultimate pressure. In addition, the magnitude difference between the loading capacity with and without SC increases when viscosity, speed and eccentricity increases.

Present research can provide some guidance for calculating the loading capacity when a journal bearing is operating at high speed or with a high viscosity lubricant.

Surface textures have been widely used in thrust bearings as a means of enhancing the tribological performance. The effect of textures with a spiral distribution on the lubrication characteristics of thrust bearings has not been fully covered. This paper aims to investigate and find the optimal structure and distribution parameters of textures with the maximum loading capacity and minimum friction force as goals.

Combining the multi-objective optimization method based on the non-dominated sorted genetic algorithm-II with response surface methodology, the key textured parameters are optimized. Local sensitivity analysis is used to evaluate the impact level of each parameter.

Spiral distribution of textures can effectively improve the lubrication performance of the thrust bearing compared with the linear distribution. The distribution with high amplitudes and high cycle numbers will weaken the spiral effect and destroy the high-pressure region. Through the multi-objective optimization of the textured structure and distribution parameters, the loading capacity demonstrates a 55.05per cent improvement compared to the basic model. Textured width is the most sensitive parameter for both loading capacity and friction force.

Present research provides a fundamental design guide for textured thrust bearings.

The growing demand of efficiency and economy has led to a dramatic increase of the operating speed of the journal bearing, with a higher temperature distribution. This paper aims to investigate the three-dimensional temperature distribution of journal bearings.

A thermo-hydrodynamic lubrication model of a journal bearing was established based on the full 3D CFD method. A two-sided wall was used to include the conjugate heat transfer effect. The temperature-dependent characteristics of lubrication and cavitation impact were also included. The simulation results well agreed with the experimental results. Based on this method, the three-dimensional temperature distribution was analyzed under different operating conditions.

The temperature distribution in the radial direction had a difference. An increase of speed and de-crease of inlet temperature promoted temperature differences in the higher temperature zone and the increasing temperature zone, respectively. However, the inlet pressure had less influence on these differences. The temperature distribution was basically the same at a lower bearing conductivity. As the conductivity increased, the radial temperature difference was increased.

The temperature distribution in the radial direction was found under different operating conditions, and the present research provides references to understand the three-dimensional temperature distribution of journal bearings.

The loading mechanism of textures considering turbulence has not been fully covered. This paper aims to investigate the effect of turbulence on the textured loading capacity under water lubrication and to analyze the causes of the turbulence effect.

Computational fluid dynamic models with different textured shapes are established after validation. The transition shear stress transport (SST) model, which is suitable for predicting the transition process of fluid from laminar state to turbulent state, is adopted in the present study. To illustrate the effect of turbulence, the loading capacity of textures predicted by transition SST model and laminar model is compared.

The loading capacity is higher after considering turbulence because more lubricant enters into textures and the flow rate of lubricant to textured outlet increases. There exists an optimal textured depth ratio and density for loading capacity and the change of flow state would not affect the optimal values. The degree of fluid blockage at textured outlet has a dominant influence on loading capacity. As the textured shape changes to triangle or ellipse from rectangle, the vortices at the textured bottom move forward and the blockage at a textured outlet is enhanced, which makes loading capacity improved under the action of blocking effect.

The enhancement of the blocking effect is found to be crucial to the improvement of textured loading capacity after considering turbulence. Present research provides references to understand the loading mechanism of textures under turbulent conditions.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-04-2020-0149/

The stringent requirements for environmental protection have induced the extensive applications of water-lubricated journal bearings in marine propulsion. The nonlinear dynamic analysis of multiple grooved water-lubricated bearings (MGWJBs) has not been fully covered so far in the literature. This study aims to conduct the nonlinear dynamic analysis of the instability for MGWJBs.

An attenuation rate interpolation method is proposed for the determination of the critical instability speed. Based on a structured mesh movement algorithm, the transient hydrodynamic force model of MGWJBs is set up. Furthermore, the parameters’ analysis of nonlinear instability for MGWJBs is conducted. The minimum water film thickness, side leakage, friction torque and power loss of friction are fully analyzed.

With the increase of speed, the journal orbits come across the steady state equilibrium motion, sub-harmonic motion and limit circle motion successively. At the limit circle motion stage, the orbits are much larger than that of steady state equilibrium and sub-harmonic motion. The critical instability speed increases when the spiral angle decreases or the groove angle increases. The minimum water film thickness peak is at the rotor speed of 4,000 r/min for the MGWJB with Sa = 0°. As rotor speed increases, the side leakage decreases slightly while the friction torque and the power loss of friction increase gradually.

Present research provides a beneficial reference for the dynamic mechanism analysis and design of MGWJBs.

This study aims to present a type of metamorphic mechanism-based quadruped crawling robot. The trunk design of the robot has a metamorphic mechanism, which endows it with excellent crawling capability and adaptability in challenging environments.

The robot consists of a metamorphic trunk and four series-connected three-joint legs. First, the walking and steering strategy is planned through the stability and mechanics analysis. Then, the walking and steering performance is examined using virtual prototype technology, as well as the efficacy of the walking and turning strategy.

The metamorphic quadruped crawling robot has wider application due to its variable trunk configuration and excellent leg motion space. The robot can move in two modes (constant trunk and trunk configuration transformation, respectively, while walking and rotating), which exhibits outstanding stability and adaptability in the examination and verification of prototypes.

The design can enhance the capacity of the quadruped crawling robot to move across a complex environment. The virtual prototype technology verifies that the proposed walking and steering strategy has good maneuverability and stability, which considerably expands the application opportunity in the fields of complicated scene identification and investigation.

Social signal processing under affective computing aims at recognizing and extracting useful human social interaction patterns. Fight is a common social interaction in real life. A fight detection system finds wide applications. This paper aims to detect fights in a natural and low-cost manner.

Research works on fight detection are often based on visual features, demanding substantive computation and good video quality. In this paper, the authors propose an approach to detect fight events through motion analysis. Most existing works evaluated their algorithms on public data sets manifesting simulated fights, where the fights are acted out by actors. To evaluate real fights, the authors collected videos involving real fights to form a data set. Based on the two types of data sets, the authors evaluated the performance of their motion signal analysis algorithm, which was then compared with the state-of-the-art approach based on MoSIFT descriptors with Bag-of-Words mechanism, and basic motion signal analysis with Bag-of-Words.

The experimental results indicate that the proposed approach accurately detects fights in real scenarios and performs better than the MoSIFT approach.

By collecting and annotating real surveillance videos containing real fight events and augmenting with well-known data sets, the authors proposed, implemented and evaluated a low computation approach, comparing it with the state-of-the-art approach. The authors uncovered some fundamental differences between real and simulated fights and initiated a new study in discriminating real against simulated fight events, with very good performance.

Phenolic epoxy vinyl ester resin (PEVER) is an advanced resin matrix, which has excellent heat resistance, electrical insulation. However, the brittleness and poor toughness of its curing product limited its application, so this paper aims to modify the PEVER with hyperbranched polyimide (HBPI), so as to enhance the toughness, heat resistance and dielectric properties of PEVER.

Hexamethylene diisocyanate trimer was used as the central reactant. Methyl tetrahydrophthalic anhydride was used as the branching unit, stannous octoate was used as the catalyst and hydroquinone was prepared as the inhibitor. Then, the hyperbranched structure of HBPI was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectrometer and ¹³C-NMR. Next, PEVER was mixed with different contents of HBPI, and then the authors tested its curing product.

It is found that with the addition of HBPI, the free volume of the system was increased and the content of polar groups was decreased in each unit space, so the dielectric constant (ε) and the dielectric loss (tanδ) were decreased. In addition, PEVER could be well toughened by HBPI and the thermal stability of PEVER was improved.

HBPI has excellent heat resistance. The addition of hyperbranched polymer increases the free volume of the system so it can slow down the transfer of stress and its nearly circular structure can absorb the impact energy from all directions. Moreover, an appropriate amount of free volume can decrease the dielectric constant of PEVER by reducing the content of polar groups.

The purpose of this study was to solve the problem of pose measurement of various parts for a precision assembly system.

A novel alignment method which can achieve high-precision pose measurement of microparts based on monocular microvision system was developed. To obtain the precise pose of parts, an area-based contour point set extraction algorithm and a point set registration algorithm were developed. First, the part positioning problem was transformed into a probability-based two-dimensional point set rigid registration problem. Then, a Gaussian mixture model was fitted to the template point set, and the contour point set is represented by hierarchical data. The maximum likelihood estimate and expectation-maximization algorithm were used to estimate the transformation parameters of the two point sets.

The method has been validated for accelerometer assembly on a customized assembly platform through experiments. The results reveal that the proposed method can complete letter-pedestal assembly and the swing piece-basal part assembly with a minimum gap of 10 µm. In addition, the experiments reveal that the proposed method has better robustness to noise and disturbance.

Owing to its good accuracy and robustness for the pose measurement of complex parts, this method can be easily deployed to assembly system.